Even language can’t escape inflation

Sunday

Apr 7, 2013 at 6:00 AM

Sid McKeen Wry & Ginger

Somebody, I forget who, asked me the other day what I thought about something they’d seen in the news “as a journalist.” I prefaced my response by pointing out that I’d never thought of myself as a journalist. Yes, I’ve been a reporter, an editor and a columnist, but to me, that adds up to being a newspaperman. Period.

It reminded me of a letter I got a couple of months ago from an educator in Worcester. (I would ordinarily refer to the gentleman as a teacher, but in keeping with the practices of the day, I am giving him a promotion.)

My correspondent, Andrew Boyd, wrote, “The principle of inflationary language has been firmly embraced by people employed in certain occupations. I was presented with two examples by the Telegram this very morning. An alarming headline declared, ‘Memorial postpones all surgeries.’ When did the language of the barber surgeon become so redolent with inflationary language? There was a time when a sick person simply went to the hospital. In the German and Dutch languages, one goes to the sick-house rather than the medical center, or (in truly inflationary language) the medical city. One was infirm in an infirmary. One had an operation, not a surgery. A visit from the leaches or the blood stick and fleam, or the lancet and probe, was not a medical procedure done in a medical suite, but a simple action of bleeding, probing or bursting. But then again, that was in a time when doctors wore clothes rather than scrubs.

“I could go on. Cynically, I might suggest a correlation between the true inflationary billing practices of the medical industry and the inflation of medical language. One feels there is true value to be had in a medical procedure. And what better way to feel the warmth than the co-pay, a scam that increases all medical action by adding a surcharge.

“The second example of inflationary language comes from the Worcester Public Schools. Oops, sorry, the Worcester School District. The example quoted was a handy-person (or fixer) who is a ‘wraparound co-ordinator.’ There are currently eight such people under the direction of a wraparound zone manager,’ according to the Telegram, at a truly inflationary cost of $623,711 per annum.

“What a wraparound co-ordinator actually does — they don’t teach — remains sketchy at best. Then again, some must be truly gifted and talented (formerly known as smart and brainy), because they wrap around ‘innovation schools.’ Notice how inflated even ideas are these days.”

The same day I got that letter, my daily memo calendar reproduced a reply by a consulting firm to the North Carolina State Board of Education, which had asked it to study how schools might combat illiteracy. This was their statement: “The conceptual framework for this evaluation posits a set of determinants of implementation which explains variations in the level of implementation of the comprehensive project.”

Say what?

Fancy words and fancy phrases often obscure what it is they’re trying to tell us — if anything at all. That’s why I don’t care to be known as a journalist.